A message about the
Guelph Connections Concert Series
A message from the Artistic Director, Guelph Connections Concerts
With great trepidation, though buoyed by my natural optimism and hope, I strode ahead and booked a new season of Guelph Connections Concerts for 2021/2022. I was very fortunate to be able rebook many of the musicians who had had their concerts cancelled over the past year and a half due to the pandemic and its inherent restrictions. I also booked some exciting new friends into our musical fold. However, every day new and restrictive complications are coming down the wire from the powers that be. With a heavy heart, and in fairness to my musician colleagues who spend months putting together the concerts that have brought you to a space of peace and joy in this troubled world, I must now announce an end to the Guelph Connections Concert series.
A huge debt of gratitude is owed to the many musicians who helped me get the series started 12 years ago. Without them, offering their performances first for free and then for a very small cheque, the "little series that could" would never have gotten off the ground. At first no one believed a free series could work - but I did! The community soon learned that the calibre of professional performances would be exceptional. And they were! What followed was a generous outpouring of freewill donations from the wider community enabling the Guelph Connections Concerts to continue.
It may be that the ideal of these concerts will return in another guise, maybe transformed, in a calmer and saner world. You may remember my colleague and friend, violinist Joan Blackman, another striving Artistic Director of the Vetta series in Vancouver, by her spectacular performances with GCC. She has put our feelings, musicians and Artistic Directors alike, in words I can’t improve upon: We may not know how the future will unfold, but if we can hold to the essence of what music does for us, if we live as if we are in harmony, then surely the world will be in a better place. I cling to this belief, now more than ever.
Marlena Tureski
Artistic Director, Guelph Connections Concerts
With great trepidation, though buoyed by my natural optimism and hope, I strode ahead and booked a new season of Guelph Connections Concerts for 2021/2022. I was very fortunate to be able rebook many of the musicians who had had their concerts cancelled over the past year and a half due to the pandemic and its inherent restrictions. I also booked some exciting new friends into our musical fold. However, every day new and restrictive complications are coming down the wire from the powers that be. With a heavy heart, and in fairness to my musician colleagues who spend months putting together the concerts that have brought you to a space of peace and joy in this troubled world, I must now announce an end to the Guelph Connections Concert series.
A huge debt of gratitude is owed to the many musicians who helped me get the series started 12 years ago. Without them, offering their performances first for free and then for a very small cheque, the "little series that could" would never have gotten off the ground. At first no one believed a free series could work - but I did! The community soon learned that the calibre of professional performances would be exceptional. And they were! What followed was a generous outpouring of freewill donations from the wider community enabling the Guelph Connections Concerts to continue.
It may be that the ideal of these concerts will return in another guise, maybe transformed, in a calmer and saner world. You may remember my colleague and friend, violinist Joan Blackman, another striving Artistic Director of the Vetta series in Vancouver, by her spectacular performances with GCC. She has put our feelings, musicians and Artistic Directors alike, in words I can’t improve upon: We may not know how the future will unfold, but if we can hold to the essence of what music does for us, if we live as if we are in harmony, then surely the world will be in a better place. I cling to this belief, now more than ever.
Marlena Tureski
Artistic Director, Guelph Connections Concerts
Guelph Connections Concerts is a unique initiative, held in Guelph but serving the broader region. Now into its tenth season, Guelph Connections has gained huge popularity in the community. Most of the scheduled musicians of this series are already recognized in Toronto, Kitchener, Waterloo, Hamilton, London, and also nationally and internationally. Others are now positioned to burst into the spotlight giving our audience the opportunity to hear them at this threshold.
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